The Absolute Best Laptop For Me Has Arrived

All right, so I've talked a lot about searching for the perfect laptop

I've been having a lot of fun trying to zero in on the ultimate laptop for me personally

based on what I do most of the time, figuring out what's important to me

I've talked a lot about this model right here, the X1 Carbon from Lenovo

And what I like about it, mostly starting with the keyboard. For me, that's all the laptop is

It's like a keyboard and a screen. That's where it all starts. Yeah, it's nice if it's a little bit more powerful

It's nice if it's some nice form factor, if it's light and all the rest of it

But the reason I'm reaching for a laptop these days over some other device like a tablet or a smartphone is because I want to type something a lot of the times

And I want a tactile kind of control. I couldn't find another keyboard anywhere close to this one at that form factor right there

You get a look at it. Look at this thing. Folds all the way up. It's a big improvement over a lot of the chiclet style keyboards that exist in the world, in my personal opinion

Me personally, I came from MacBooks, many different eras of MacBooks. I owned every single version up until the latest one

I guess I kind of just accepted those keyboards. Then when they started to fail, that's what motivated this change to go looking for the ultimate keyboard

which then led me to my picture of what the ultimate laptop would be

but this ThinkPad, this X1 Carbon on the top, once I determined that I really liked this laptop

that it was gonna be my choice, my selection for the daily laptop

I was like, I wanna customize one to my exact specification instead of this one

And then that's where this box comes in right here. So this model in front of me is an X1 Carbon

but customized to be the ultimate perfect laptop. And you can see that identified here

in this long list of customization. so 1.9 gigahertz i7 it's got 16 gigs of ram which is the maximum for this particular laptop that

model that model over there was eight this one also has mobile antenna so you can put a sim

card in here and remain connected at all times oh also this is a bit of an experiment this could be

risky but the model inside of here is a silver model it's gray in color which is kind of anti

ThinkPad but one of the things that I didn't like so much about the matte black model is it does get

smudgy it gets fingerprints on so I wanted to try out this silver version which is kind of crazy because they are putting out a seventh generation of this laptop very shortly and it gonna have a carbon fiber weave

and I think they're getting rid of this color. So if I end up liking this color, it might not be for long

The WQHD display, whereas the model that's sitting over there was just 1080p

Now, of course, my main curiousness at this point is relating to the color since the standard matte black

is like the legendary ThinkPad thing. And I don't know, maybe I'll end up hating this silver

It's a bit of a risk, especially on a custom config. Also, I will say I got a coupon for this

when I ordered this. So I actually got a fair amount of money off. So if you do order a ThinkPad directly

even a custom one, there's typically some decent coupons floating around. I think I say like 500 bucks on this custom one

So keep that in mind. Unboxing experience. I've done this before with the last one

This is so cool. See how it lifts up like that? Big fan of that. That is such a cool presentation baked into the box

It's like they knew they were gonna be on Unbox Therapy with this. They didn't know that, but anyhow

It's striking to have something with an industrial design like this that feels as solid as this, that's still this light

Like to put it in perspective, this is a 14 inch display and it's half a pound lighter than the MacBook Air

Oh, I like that color. Okay, it's darker than I expected it to be

almost space gray territory. It's definitely not glossy, but it's also not matte

It's somewhere between the two. So this is what happens on the matte finish, is it gets a little smudgy

You can see the smudginess right there. This inevitably happens, it's just part of the finish

And I get it, it's meant to be industrial, like who cares

But it's just something that happens with this particular texture, and even more so when you open it up

See that right there? The track pad, the palm rests. It's not a big deal

I would happily keep using this laptop because I otherwise like it so much

But when I saw this finish, I was like, man, I really gotta try that out. So anyway, that's what I've gone for here

Now if you open it up, this is what it looks like on the inside. So you still have the exact same black keyboard

same key travels, same kind of U-shaped design to each key. I just, I love the travel of these keys

It's a happy place to be. Because I opted for the WQHD display

it's still a matte finish, which is a big deal to me. I really like that type of display

I work in front of a window fairly frequently so But also because of that you get the infrared sensor up top So this is gonna have Windows Hello face unlock whereas the non config sort of base model

X1 Carbon, didn't have that. So if you pick this configuration, you can unlock with your face, so keep that in mind

And as you can tell, one of the trademarks of the ThinkPad series, the hinge goes all the way flat

This is a fairly portable power brick, 65 watts. Now I did a video on a third party power brick

a tiny little power brick that I've been using with my other X1 Carbon

You can go check out that video if you want, if you're looking for something even more portable than this

The available ports on this model. So you have the type C connector

which is a Thunderbolt port, but also works to charge the device

There's this proprietary connector here, which you can connect in ethernet adapter to

kind of a weird connector. I mean, it will give you gigabit ethernet, but you do need that adapter cable

The one beside there is actually another Thunderbolt connector. You got your traditional USB and HDMI port

And can I just say, having come from a MacBook Pro, having a diversity of ports has been such a breath

a deep breath of fresh air, because every so often I have to interface with

for example, a card reader or something like this, which uses the traditional USB or some other peripheral, a mouse

and I don't need to use an adapter for that because the traditional USB is on there

Also having a full size HDMI comes in handy as well. And I just got used to not having those options

or needing to use a hub with the MacBook Pro, but to have it on a package is portable

It's nice, diversity of ports, useful. You get another USB on the other side as well

and a headphone jack too. So lots of ports to choose from

Almost forgot. On the back here, like I said, since I opted for the wireless antenna

I can just pop a sim card in here and connect that to my data account and just be running wireless no matter where I am

Without the need for Wi-Fi. So that's a cool feature that you can spec out on this as well

All right now one of the things I didn't like that much about this laptop was the speakers salute to speed

There's a McLaren logo. This is the latest one. What will it probably your email now

Granted, I'm not assuming I'm gonna see any kind of improvement here because it's the same model as the previous one

That said the next version of this laptop the 7th generation X1 Carbon apparently not only did that one get a little bit lighter and it showcasing the carbon fiber exterior like you actually see the carbon fiber pattern but apparently also they

improved the audio. It's something I learned to live with, to be honest. I guess I just, I don't

know. It turns out that as much as like on the MacBook, I appreciated the speakers that it had

It's not a deal breaker for me. It's nowhere near as important as say the keyboard, for example

which is top priority for me, it turns out, after having tried a bunch of them

I've got the new one booted up, and first things first, I'm very happy with the display upgrade

going to the higher resolution model. I think it's worth it, not just because of the resolution

but also to have the face unlock, which I find to be convenient

even more convenient on a laptop than a phone, to be honest, because you're always staring at it

Pixels are much tougher to pick up on the higher res display than the 1080p version

Here, at about this range, I can see pixels in text. I would say the newer model trends a little bit warmer

out of the box, as you can see right there. Brightness-wise, they're pretty close, if not identical

So, what can I say? I mean, you can go back and watch the original video

if you want more detail on how the speakers sound. Ultimately, this is me doubling down

on what is my favorite laptop at the moment. I'll be really upset if Lenovo gets rid of this finish

because to me, it's still got the industrial look to it. It's a little bit cleaner, doesn't smudge up

The overall aesthetic of this device here, it's a bit more in line with a modern laptop

The screen is nice. The overall form factor, 14 inch display at two and a half pounds and a solid build

You know, it's just, it's a solid package. I think for right now, based on what's available in the marketplace

This right here represents my perfect laptop. I'm gonna throw a SIM card in it

I'm always connected. It goes under the arm. Very cool. Lenovo, don't get rid of this finish

All right, go ahead. Put out the carbon version for Generation 7

with the carbon weave on it. But like, do this one too

It's fine, I promise. I'll buy one. That's probably not enough to convince you

but the world's perfect laptop, maybe, possibly, at least for me. I'll put actually the specs in the description

if you want to spec one out similarly. But there you have it. X1 Carbon improved